


tear me to pieces (skin to bone)

by CassandraStarflower



Series: lovely [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Rape/Non-con, Dick Grayson-centric, Gen, POV Second Person, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassandraStarflower/pseuds/CassandraStarflower
Summary: Dick Grayson, love, and family (and how much it hurts).A sort of character study of the OG Batkid.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: lovely [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123244
Kudos: 52





	tear me to pieces (skin to bone)

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m making this a series.   
> Also, I will freely admit that I’m a Dickkory shipper, not a Dickbabs shipper, and also I’m ace, so…   
> Warnings for canonical rape (Mirage and Tarantula). Rated M because the Tarantula incident is somewhat described, in relatively vague but still there ways. There's also some internalized victim-blaming on Dick's part in the wake of both Mirage and Tarantula.

Your heart is three sizes too big. 

When you are small, you overhear, once, your parents, talking about how quick you are to love. 

They are afraid that this will get you hurt. 

You cannot see how. You are a child. You don’t realize. 

Yet. 

(Someday, you will see. Someday, you will love and love and it will tear you apart. Someday.) 

You are nine years old when everything falls apart. 

You are perched up on the platform, watching your parents. Soon, you will join them on the trapezes. 

Soon, but not yet. 

(Not ever.)

You don’t realize what’s happening at first. 

The lines snap. 

The trapezes fall. 

You don’t realize. Until. 

Your parents-

Fall. 

You don’t react at first. Your brain is moving slow, your eyes fixed on your parents as they grasp each other and reach for the sky. 

Your brain finally catches up in time for the snapping of bones below as your parents touch the ground. 

You scream. 

You hurl yourself down the ladder, running towards your parents- 

There are people, everywhere. Mr. Haly, panicking. Audience members screaming. 

A man stops you from reaching them, pressing his hands down on your shoulders, gentle and steadying. 

“Shh, chum, no,” he tells you, squeezing your shoulders, blocking your view. 

He tells you not to look. You sob, reaching past him, wanting your parents. 

The police swarm the circus, and you… 

You wait inside your family’s trailer. You think that once the police leave, you will have to live in someone else’s trailer, because your parents are gone. 

You feel hollowed-out and empty, eyes achingly dry, head throbbing. 

A policeman comes in with Mr. Haly. 

Mr. Haly tells you that the circus is not allowed to keep you. 

The policeman takes you away to a place with concrete rooms and cold floors and angry children. 

You don’t like it here. No one likes you, either, and they say awful things to you. 

You try to hide. English is not your strong suit at all, but you know the words they spit at you. 

Most of them. 

You don’t like this place. 

A week passes. You hate America a little more every day, and Gotham is a cesspit of pain and evil. 

You run away once. The police catch you. They aren’t kind about taking you back, roughly grabbing your arms and dragging you into their car. 

The man who was at the circus comes to the Center. He wants to take you home with him. 

The lady in charge, looking tired and angry, says  _ fine, take him _ and the other boys snicker and whisper, smirking at you. You ignore them. 

The man is named Bruce Wayne, and he is very rich. You don’t care about this. You just want to find the man who killed your parents. 

…

Your new guardian is Batman. 

You make yourself a costume and sneak out into Gotham, searching for your parents’ killer. 

Batman finds you. 

There is a lot of yelling. 

Once you get over that, and your parents’ killer is caught, you start to realize that Bruce perhaps does not actually know what he’s doing. 

He is… young. You thought twenty-three was old before, but you don’t think so anymore. 

He definitely is younger than your parents. By a lot. 

You don’t really mind. Having Bruce is less having a parent and more a big brother, maybe, or what you imagine a big brother to be like. 

Big brothers probably don’t yell at you for being “reckless” on patrol, though. 

You go on, working with Bruce, for a long time. 

You are thirteen, almost fourteen, when you help found the Teen Titans. They very quickly go from being just a team to being a family. 

You have a family again. Bruce is your new parent (mostly), and Alfred is like a grandfather/ (you’ve never met any of your grandparents, and you think they’re all dead. Some day, you will learn that you do have one living relative. This will not be a happy revelation.)

The Teen Titans are like siblings, except Kory. 

She is your first true crush, and you fall for her fast. 

She falls for you right back. 

\---

Barbara Gordon is a surprise. You like her, though. She’s tough, and funny, and she yells at Bruce. 

She makes herself Batgirl and sets to work helping you and Bruce fight crime. 

She’s  _ cool. _

You grow up. 

You start fighting with Bruce. 

The fights get worse and you leave. 

You can’t be Robin anymore. 

You have to be something else. 

You don’t know what yet, but you have an idea. 

_ Nightwing.  _

And then you check the news and find out that Bruce has adopted a new kid. 

Jason Todd. 

And that Bruce has a new Robin. 

_ Jason Todd. _

It hurts more than you expected. Bruce has replaced you. 

You come home to fight with him again, and you aren’t nice to Jason. 

(You’ll live to regret the fighting.)

(He won’t.)

You yell at Bruce and leave for Bludhaven, you become Nightwing, you shed your past, your family’s colors, and it feels like a betrayal. It feels wrong. 

It also feels so right. 

You stay with the Titans a lot. Mission after mission. 

Things go wrong sometimes. 

(Wronger than usual, sometimes.) 

You and Kory break up. 

(Mirage. You thought it was Kory, and now-)

(All those memories of being with Kory are tainted now. Mirage pretended to be Kory. You thought-)

(You feel dirty. Used. And you don’t understand. You don’t know who’s in the wrong here. Is it Mirage? Is it you?)

You move on from Kory and from Mirage and the- 

You keep going. 

Missions with the Titans. 

Protecting Bludhaven. 

Eventually, you start dating Babs. 

One day, you go on a mission with the Titans. It’s a space mission, and you come home after two weeks and learn that your little brother is dead. 

Jason is dead. 

The Joker murdered him. 

You stay away from Gotham in the wake of your worst fight with Bruce yet. 

And then one day, a child appears on your doorstep. His name is Tim Drake. He knows your secret identity. 

And he was there that night, the night that everything changed. 

You look at the picture and think back. You remember him, maybe, tiny and chubby-cheeked, wide-eyed, sitting in your lap for a picture. 

He tells you that Batman needs a Robin. You refrain from snapping at him. He’s just a kid. He doesn’t understand. 

He makes a convincing case for Bruce needing  _ some _ kind of help, though. 

You go back to Gotham to help Bruce for a case. The kid is there, having apparently attempted to talk to Bruce. 

You commend him for that. Bruce is impossible to talk to. 

You and Bruce nearly die, and Tim Drake appears in the Robin costume and saves the day. 

After that, Bruce makes him Robin officially. 

You’re okay with it, this time. 

You come to Gotham more often now, wanting to spend time with Tim. Each time, he is painfully surprised. You just hug him and smile. 

In Bludhaven, things get worse. 

Blockbuster. 

You shut out Bruce now, terrified of losing anything else. 

And there is Catalina. Tarantula. 

You want to help her. 

(Your fatal flaw is this: you bare your heart to people, wanting to help, wanting to love them, and they put a knife in it. You never learn.)

Blockbuster is dead and there is blood on your hands. 

It’s your fault. 

It’s raining on the rooftop. 

Catalina comes closer to where you huddle, the rain stinging your face, and you don’t look at her. 

She shot Blockbuster. 

You were trying to help her. 

You… 

This is your fault. 

She won’t stop  _ touching  _ you, even when you tell her to stop. 

You don’t have the energy to fight. You don’t feel like you’re in your body right now. 

Rain on your face, blood on your gloves, hands on your skin. 

You’re cold. 

So cold. 

You arrest her days later. She doesn’t seem to think she’s done anything wrong. 

(Has she? You don’t know. You don’t know. You didn’t stop her. You didn’t fight. You didn’t-) 

_ (you didn’t deserve this.) _

_ (you didn’t deserve any of this.) _

_ (you do not know what to say. what to do.) _

You pretend nothing happened. 

Babs still breaks up with you. You deserve that, maybe, after being such a mess. 

(letting her-)

You throw yourself into the Titans, into mentoring Tim, into fixing your relationship with Bruce. It is all you can do even when the world is falling apart around you. 

Tim’s mother dies. 

His father is in a coma. 

You don’t know what to say to him. 

You just sit next to him on the bed and wrap your arms around him. 

You never know what to say. 

You think of Tim as your brother, and sometimes you think that this is unfair. 

You never got to be a brother to Jason, not really. Too caught up in stupid, petty conflicts, busy fighting with Bruce, never  _ trying _ to love Jason. 

Tim is not a do-over. You cannot do that to him. 

His father wakes up. You cannot be his big brother. His father won’t allow it. 

And then- 

Jason. 

Jason, alive,  _ alive, _ alive and furious. So angry and full of hate. 

He tries to kill Tim. He murders drug dealers and slaughters his way through Gotham’s criminal underground. 

All you can think is  _ little wing, please. _

(Maybe you should have loved him more. When he was alive. Maybe this is your fault. Like everything is. You never do enough, do you? You think maybe you could have fixed everything, all of it, every piece of tragedy and pain in your life is your own fault, isn’t it? If only you’d been stronger, smarter, better…)

Jason keeps being angry. 

Tim’s father dies. 

You think Tim is falling apart, held at the edges with duct tape. 

You think you are falling apart. 

(You have never been very good at taking care of yourself. You are far better at taking care of other people, and no one ever returns the favor.)

Bruce has a son, and his son is named Damian, ten years old and carrying a sword, calling you  _ Grayson _ in a mocking voice and nearly killing Tim. 

And then, before Bruce can try to deal with this, he is dead. 

Bruce is dead. 

Your  _ father _ is dead. 

Dead. 

(Like everyone else you love.)

(Except that you love so freely, and so easily, and they cannot possibly all die. You love so much and no one ever seems to really return it. You bare your heart to them and every time, you lose a little bit of yourself to another relationship that you cannot support alone.)

(But you cannot help it. You are made to love.)

There is no one else to be Batman except you. 

You dread this. 

The cowl is too heavy, made for someone else, but there is no one else. 

It is made worse by needed to take care of Damian, only ten, and by what happens with Tim. 

You think maybe you should have spoken to Tim first. 

You think maybe you should never have become Batman. 

You keep going. 

You teach Damian, and he begins to respect you. 

(And only you. It’s a problem.)

The cowl is still too heavy. You are tired. 

So tired. 

You try to find Tim, but he doesn’t want to be found. 

You try to keep Damian from using the vicious things he learned as a child, but he doesn’t stop. 

You try to keep your family together even as they spin in every separate direction. 

You try and try and try. 

Tim gets kicked out a window and you catch him before he can die. 

He tells you that he knew you’d be there. You almost throw up. 

_ You’re my brother, Dick. _

There is nothing you can say. 

Bruce comes home, alive, and takes the cowl. You shed Batman with relief, slipping back into Nightwing and returning to Bludhaven. 

Tim comes home for good, with tired eyes, and stays away. 

You think you broke your relationship with him for good. 

You think maybe you should apologize. 

You come home to Gotham again and again, spending time with Damian, trying to mend things with everyone else. 

You talk to Tim. Both of you cry. 

Tim forgives you. 

Your family starts to heal. 

You cling to this, to the slow repair of everything that has been broken. 

You need to fix everything. You need to take care of them. You refuse to allow them to fall apart again. 

(You hide your own pain, locking it all away, and focus on everyone else. You cannot let yourself acknowledge that terrible things have been done to you, because you will fall apart if you do.)

Jason starts coming home. He doesn’t snap so much, anymore, he hasn’t called Tim  _ Replacement _ in days, he doesn’t glare when you call him  _ little wing. _

You take that and cling to it. 

(You are trying so, so hard. No one ever sees it.)

Your family heals. Slowly, bit by bit, until you are not filled with the fear that they will all fall apart. 

You are still the glue that holds everyone together. 

You do not even think that this could be any other way. 

You finally fall apart, safe in your father’s arms, Bruce whispering reassuring soft words, trying to help you, your family somewhere beyond your bedroom door, safe, and tears are stinging your eyes, and your family is safe, and you are safe, and you love your family, and you are loved. 

(Time may not heal all wounds, but you can try. Your family is here. You don’t always need to be the one fixing everyone else. You do not need to take the burden on yourself.)

**Author's Note:**

> This got depressing… but I think I managed a decent happy ending.   
> Come find me on tumblr @cassandra-starflower!


End file.
